The Conscious Semiotic Mind
PDF

Keywords

cognitive-semiotic system
phenomenal consciousness
awareness
core consciousness
extended consciousness
valuation features
somatic marker
metasemiosis

Abstract

DOI: http://doi.org/10.26333/sts.xxxi1.05

The paper discusses possible roles of consciousness in a semiotic (meaning-making) activity of a cognitive agent. The discussion, we claim, is based on two related approaches to consciousness: on Chalmers’ theory of phenomenal and psychological consciousness and on Damasio’s neural theory, which draws a distinction between core and extended consciousness.

Two stages of cognitive-semiotic processing are discussed: the moment of perception of a sign as a meaningful entity and the metasemiotic processes understood as the human capacity to reflect on signs and their usage, analyse and control processes of recognition, interpretation of signs and to detect and correct errors in semiotic activity. In the case of the first stage, it is argued that signs as meaningful entities have a distincly experiential character. The feeling of meaningfulness is a result of phenomenal consciousness, in particular a result of the so-called valuation features of phenomenal experience. I claim that this aspect of cognitive-semiotic activity is possible owing to a special neural mechanism called a semiotic marker. It is argued that semiotic systems have to be able to use signs as signs, i.e. they should display some metacognitive capacities, in particular an ability to analyse semiosis at a metalevel.

It is argued that such metasemiosis is dependent on psychological consciousness (in Chalmers’ terms: awareness) and is realized at the neural level in the form of extended consciousness.

The paper is based on a particular understanding of cognitive semiotics as a discipline involving analyses of cognitive processes as semiotic processes, i.e. processes requiring usage of signs.

PDF

References

Armstrong, D. (1980), The Nature of Mind and Other Essays, Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

Beer, R.D. (1995), A Dynamical Systems Perspective on Agent-Environment Interaction, “Artificial Intelligence” 72, pp. 173–215.

Block, N. (1995), On a Confusion about the Function of Consciousness, “Behavioral and Brain Sciences” 18, pp. 227–247.

Brooks, R. (1991), Intelligence without representation, “Artificial Intelligence” 47, pp. 139–159.

Chalmers, D. (1996), The Conscious Mind, New York: Oxford University Press.

Chalmers, D. (2004), Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness, in: J. Heil (ed.), Philosophy of Mind. Guide and Anthology, New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 617–640.

Churchland, P. (1981), Eliminative Materialism and the Propositional Attitudes, “The Journal of Philosophy” 78, pp. 67–90.

Chapman, R.M., Bragdon, H.R. (1964), Evoked Responses to Numerical and NonNumerical Visual Stimuli While Problem Solving, “Nature” 203, pp. 1155–1157.

Damasio, A. (1994), Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain, London: Papermac.

Damasio, A. (1999), The Feeling of What Happens, Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Fetzer, J. (1988), Signs and Minds: An Introduction to the Theory of Semiotic Systems, in J. Fetzer (ed.), Aspects of Artificial Intelligence. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, pp. 133–161.

Fetzer, J. (2016), Peirce and the Philosophy of Artificial Intelligence, in: M. Bergman, João Queiroz (ed.), The Commens Encyclopedia – The Digital Encyclopedia of Peirce Studies New Edition, URL: http://www.commens.org/encyclopedia/article/fetzerjames-peirce-and-philosophy-artificial-intelligence>, [accessed: 10.01.2016].

Harnish, R.M. (2002), Minds, Brains, Computers. An Historical Introduction to the Foundations of Cognitive Science, Malden: Wiley-Blackwell

Jackendoff, R. (2007), Language, Consciousness, Culture. Essays on Mental Structure, Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

Houser, N. (1983), Peirce’s General Taxonomy of Consciousness, “Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society”, vol. 19, no. 4, pp. 331–359.

Kim, J. (2000), Mind in a Physical World, Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press

Kim, J. (2011), Philosophy of Mind, 3rd edition, Boulder: Westview Press.

Konderak, P. (2015), On a Cognitive Model of Semiosis, “Studies in Logic, Grammar and Rhetoric” 40(53), pp. 129–144.

Konderak, P. (2017), Between Language and Consciousness: Linguistic Qualia, Awareness, and Cognitive Models, “Studies in Logic, Grammar and Rhetoric”, 48(1), pp. 285–302.

Konderak, P. (in press), On Evolution of Thinking about Semiosis: Semiotics Meets Cognitive Science, “Avant. Trends in Interdisciplinary Studies”.

Nagel, T. (1974), What Is It Like to Be a Bat?, “The Philosophical Review” 83(4), pp. 435–450.

Nęcka, E., Orzechowski J., Szymura B. (2006), Psychologia poznawcza, Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN.

Noë, A. (2004), Action in Perception, Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press

Oppenheim, P., Putnam, H. (1958), Unity of Science as a Working Hypothesis, in: H. Feigl et al. (eds.), Concepts, Theories, and the Mind-Body Problem, Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol. II, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, pp. 3–36.

Peirce, C.S. (1931–1958), Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce, vols. 1–6, C. Hartshorne, P. Weiss (eds.), vols. 7–8, A.W. Burks (ed), Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

Petrilli, S. (2014), Sign Studies and Semioethics: Communication, Translation and Values, Boston: Walter de Gruyter.

Place, U.T. (1956), Is Consciousness a Brain Process?, “British Journal of Psychology” 47, pp. 44–50. 29 Putnam, H. (1975), Philosophy and Our Mental Life, in: H. Putnam, Mind, Language and Reality: Philosophical Papers, vol. 2, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Zlatev, J. (2009), The Semiotic Hierarchy: Life, Consciousness, Signs and Language, “Cognitive Semiotics” 4, pp. 169–200. 40 Zlatev, J. (2012), Cognitive Semiotics: An Emerging Field for the Transdisciplinary Study of Meaning, “Public Journal of Semiotics” IV, pp. 2–24.

Putnam, H. (1981), Mind and Body, in: H. Putnam Reason, Truth and History, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 75–102.

Rowlands, M. (2010), A New Science of the Mind. From Extended Mind to Embodied Phenomenology. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

Schraw, Gregory (1998), Promoting General Metacognitive Awareness, “Instructional Science” 26, pp. 113–125.

Smart, J.J.C. (1959), Sensations and Brain Processes, “The Philosophical Review” 68, pp. 141–156.

Sonesson, G. (2012), The Foundation of Cognitive Semiotics in the Phenomenology of Signs and Meanings, “Intellectica” 58, pp. 207–239.

Taatgen N.A., Anderson, J.R. (2008), Constraints in Cognitive Architectures, in: R. Sun (ed.), The Cambridge Handbook of Computational Psychology, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, p. 170–185.

Thompson, E. (2007), Mind in Life: Biology, Phenomenology and the Sciences of Mind, London: Belkarp Press.

Thompson, E., Stapleton, M. (2009), Making Sense of Sense-Making: Reflections on Enactive and Extended Mind Theories, “Topoi” 28(1), pp. 23–30.

Varela, F.J (1996), Neurophenomenology: A methodological remedy for the hard problem, “Journal of Consciousness Studies” 3(4), pp. 330–350.

Zlatev, J. (2009), The Semiotic Hierarchy: Life, Consciousness, Signs and Language, “Cognitive Semiotics” 4, pp. 169–200.

Zlatev, J. (2012), Cognitive Semiotics: An Emerging Field for the Transdisciplinary Study of Meaning, “Public Journal of Semiotics” IV, pp. 2–24.